Swing top bottles

[John "Scotsman" McKinlay]

I am looking for some swing top bottles for my test brew. I Found some 1litre swing tops from IKEA at £1.90 ... But I don't think they'd be able to take any kind of pressure.

https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products...bottle-with-stopper-clear-glass-art-30213552/

What do you think ??

I don't mind paying the £20 for 12x500ml or 8x750ml swing tops, but the 1litre sounds a little easier to store, y'know.

 

[Zephyr259]

Yeah I don't think they'd be able to take carbonation pressure, I wouldn't risk it anyway.

Oh, you're another new member, welcome!

I've got bottles from here before they're a pretty good online shop and cheaper than the prices you're quoting.

What you planning on brewing? This you're first go?

 

[John "Scotsman" McKinlay]

Mead - from an American YouTube recipe of 3lb honey to 1gal water.

Yeah, first go at anything like this, but from what I've read mead is a nice start.

I was rounding up the prices for the bottles - I have gotten most of my stuff from the homebrew centre and i was thonking of these ones of there 750ml clear ones for around the same price.
https://www.homebrewcentre.co.uk/equipment/bottles-jars/amber-swing-top-bottles

It's 6litres anyway... So, that's plenty.

 

[Zephyr259]

Ah, not come across that store before, those bottles look good. The proper homebrew bottles will have a more reliable seal than a water bottle, so even if your mead is still I'd go with the homebrew bottles.

Oh, mead, I've tried it a few times and had some issues with it. Something to bear in mind is that the american gallon is 3.8 L vs our at 4.5L so you need 120% the honey. Also what do they recommend for nutrients? It's getting more common to stagger the additions rather than add them all in at once but I've not tried this yet.

A few folks on here have made mead and had tasty results from cheap aldi/lidl honey but my experience was that they were pretty tasteless. I made a 5 L batch of sparkling orange blossom mead at 7% using tesco's finest, I remade it as a 10L batch of still mead which is even better.

 

[John "Scotsman" McKinlay]

They literally use a 1gal bottle of water, 3lb of squeeze bottle honey, a lot of brute force to mix them together, and half a packet of wine yeast.

I'm seeing what that brings me.

Then I'll use the information from the mead thread on this forum from (can't remember the username) a polish person whose been making mead for 12years ... Of 3litres water to 1litre honey ... And see where things go.

 

[Zephyr259]

Ah yes I know who you're talking about, seemed really knowledgeable.

I'd strongly suggest you get some standard yeast nutrient for this batch, honey has essential no nitrogen which means the yeast are going to struggle and might not be able to ferment it properly. Just add a teaspoon when mixing it up and the yeast should manage.

 

[xozzx]

Is mead not normally still? (Ive never made it so could be wrong).

If you arent carbonating it then the IKEA bottles should be fine, I have these bottles but would never use them for any carbonated drinks.

 

[John "Scotsman" McKinlay]

Yeah, mead should be still, but as an absolute armature I could do something stupid and I'd rather have the bottles be able to cope.

 

[Fil]

while your collecting nice swingtops by drinking the contents 3 for a fiver is the usual supermarket price use pet pet bottles from the recycle bin.. a few 2l bottles per batch makes the job a lot easier/shorter both cleaning sanitising and filling..

 

[John "Scotsman" McKinlay]

while your collecting nice swingtops by drinking the contents 3 for a fiver is the usual supermarket price use pet pet bottles from the recycle bin.. a few 2l bottles per batch makes the job a lot easier/shorter both cleaning sanitising and filling..

Don't really understand what you're getting at here, to be perfectly honest. I'm not collecting swingtop bottles by drinking the contents. I am buying swingtop bottles to use for a variety of potential brewing applications.

 

[Zephyr259]

Mead is usually still but carbonating it is not unheard of especially on lower strength meads. It's really tasty, a nice alternative to cider and the lower abv means it's cheaper as less honey needed, less stressful to the yeast so easier to ferment cleanly. Also it's drinkable in about a month. When my first couple of mead experiments failed and went down the drain I switched to low abv to get the process down better. Actually about time I got a full strength batch on the go.

 

[Spoon]

I think Fil's point was that buying beer is sometimes cheaper than the empty bottles.

TKmaxx sometimes have posh fizzy drinks in big swingtops, or use champage bottles (and use the lever top wine stoppers to re-seal them to keep the contents fresh a couple of days).

 

[John "Scotsman" McKinlay]

Yes, that may well be the case but can you guarantee the quality of these bottles?
Are you willing to pay "3 fur a fiver" on bottles that are of an unknown quality at £1.66 per bottle? Or are you willing to pay £17 for 12 bottles or £1.41 per bottle on bottles that are of a known quality?

I appreciate this is supposed to be helpful advice, and all that. However, without knowing the use case it sounds a lot more like unsolicited notes.

 

[Covrich]

https://www.geterbrewed.com/kilner-drink-works-bottle-500ml-plus-12-porcelain-swing-tops/

these are good obviously with P&P you are paying about £16 but you can mitigate that getting mire supplies if you choose in one delivery

 

[John "Scotsman" McKinlay]

https://www.geterbrewed.com/kilner-drink-works-bottle-500ml-plus-12-porcelain-swing-tops/

these are good obviously with P&P you are paying about £16 but you can mitigate that getting mire supplies if you choose in one delivery

They are very nice, thank you! Very nice.

annnd purchased....

 

[MmmBeer]

If you have a branch of the Range locally, you can pick some of these up without the need for p&p.
https://www.therange.co.uk/cooking-...MIs87Qm5Gb2gIVjxbTCh0mEw0HEAkYASABEgICL_D_BwE

 

[Covrich]

They are very nice, thank you! Very nice.

annnd purchased....

Just to also confirm I DO have some myself not just posting a random link , they are kilner and are good, I have 24 and will probably get some more actually

 

[Oneflewover]

If you have a branch of the Range locally, you can pick some of these up without the need for p&p.
https://www.therange.co.uk/cooking-...MIs87Qm5Gb2gIVjxbTCh0mEw0HEAkYASABEgICL_D_BwE

+1 for The Range swing top bottles

 

[Ken L]

I have a colleague who likes posh lemonade.
I have a handful of her castoffs, one contains my olive oil and the others get used for brewing.

I particularly like that the seals are the little hat type rather than disks with a hole in them because this means that you can reliably clean and sanitise everything that comes into contact with the beer.

 

[darkbright]

+1 for The Range swing top bottles

I bought some from the range the other day as I had run out of some plastic PET bottles. They feel sturdy and easy to assemble. Good tight fit after filling too. The only thing that I thought was odd was that the rubber seal is part of the bottle top so doesn't look replaceable.